Death at the Crossroads

CHAPTER 6

It was early afternoon by the time Kaze walked into the next village. The thatched roofs, the dusty streets that turned to mud when it rained, and the weathered wooden walls all looked familiar to him. Every village in Japan was starting to look the same to him. But like Suzaka, Jiro’s village, Kaze could see that this one, Higashi, was more run-down and tattered than he was used to.

Unlike Jiro’s village, Higashi boasted a tea shop where travelers could get a meal and spend the night. It was located where three roads met, and on the indigo-blue half-curtain that hung from the top of the doorway, the name HIGASHI TEAHOUSE was painted. It wasn’t poetic or imaginative, but Kaze decided that as a name it had the virtues of simplicity and clarity. He stepped into the shop.

In the entrance was a square area with a dirt floor. It was surrounded by the raised wooden floor of the teahouse. Kaze sat on the edge of the floor and untied his traveling sandals. A serving girl in the shop spotted him and came to the entrance. With a deep bow she shouted, “Irasshai! Greetings!”

Kaze nodded an acknowledgment and bent down to remove his footwear. When he straightened up, he was greeted by the sight of the girl holding out a pair of clean cotton tabi to him, an unexpected touch. He removed his dirty tabi and put on the clean socks.

He followed the girl into the back of the teahouse. “Do you want a private room or the common room, samurai-sama?” the girl asked. Kaze considered his financial position and weighed it against his wish to be alone. His desire for solitude won.

“A private room.”

She escorted him into a small, four-mat room. He sank down to the tatami, shifting his sword to a more convenient position.

“Sake?” the girl asked. Kaze noticed that she had grabbed the loose sleeve of her kimono and was twisting it between her fingers. He wondered if it was just a habit or if she was nervous about something.

“No. Ocha. Tea. Before you go, can you tell me if there has been anyone new to this village in the last few years? I’m trying to find a nine-year-old girl. She might have been sold as a servant.”

The girl gave him a puzzled look and said, “No, samurai-sama.”

“All right. Just get the tea.”

The girl scurried off while Kaze settled in. The thin paper walls did nothing to dampen sounds, but the teahouse was very quiet. Kaze thought he could have saved a little money because it sounded like the common room in the teahouse was as empty as his small private one. He sighed. Thoughts of money weren’t a worthy occupation for a samurai. Usually this was left to the samurai’s wife to worry about. A gripping sadness clutched at Kaze’s heart with the mere thought of a wife. His wife. His dead wife. Like the Lady, she was gone, too. He took a deep breath and tried to clear his mind.

The girl returned with a teapot and cup. She placed them before Kaze and poured the tea. As soon as she put the teapot down, she started worrying the sleeve of her kimono again. “Do you want something to eat?” she said. “The rice isn’t made yet, but we have some delicious oden.”

“Oden is fine. Bring it immediately. I’m hungry.”

The girl rushed off to get his order. He picked up the cup and sipped at the hot, bitter tea. One good thing about his current life was that it had taught him to appreciate simple things: the joy of a cup of hot tea served without the ritual of the tea ceremony or the taste of a simple stew like oden.

He could hear the rapid shuffle of the girl’s feet as she returned with his order. Suddenly, through the thin paper walls, he heard the girl stumble and the crash of a bowl hitting the floor. “Oh,” he heard the girl utter.

Soon there was another, heavier set of feet approaching. It stopped, and the high-pitched voice of a man could be heard.

“Stupid! What’s the matter with you?”

“I was just rushing because the samurai said he was hungry and-”

“Look, you’ve broken the bowl!”

“But I-”

“Damn it! I’m tired of your clumsiness! I don’t know why we ever bought you.”

“I’m sorry, but I was-”

“Don’t talk back to me!” Kaze heard the smack of a hand hitting a face, and a sharp, surprised yelp from the girl. Kaze tried to block out such unpleasantness and took another sip of his tea. Like all good Japanese, he willed himself not to hear what could be easily heard through the thin walls.

A second, louder smack was heard. This time the girl cried out in pain. A third hit, and now the girl seemed frightened as well as in pain. Kaze sighed. He got up in one fluid motion and opened the shoji screen door of the room. A few feet away the serving girl was cowering on the floor, backing away from a bow-legged man dressed in a blue kimono. The man raised his hand to hit her again, and Kaze quickly crossed over to him before he could bring his hand down. Kaze grabbed the man’s wrist.

Almost automatically, the man tried to jerk his hand away from Kaze’s grip. Kaze tightened his fingers around the man’s wrist and held the hand immobile. Surprised, the man looked around to meet Kaze’s glare.

“I’m very hungry,” Kaze said evenly to the innkeeper. “Please bring me another bowl of oden. You can add the price of the broken bowl to my bill.”

The innkeeper opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. The anger drained from him as Kaze continued to glare at him. He stopped pulling at Kaze’s grip and said, “Of course, samurai-sama. I was just upset with the clumsiness of the girl. She broke a dish yesterday, and with business the way it is I can’t afford to pay for such clumsiness.”

Kaze released the innkeeper’s wrist and walked back to his room, closing the shoji screen after him. After a pause, he heard the innkeeper say, “Well, don’t just sit there crying. Clean things up, then go get another bowl of oden.”

Kaze picked up his teacup and took another sip. He was halfway done with the cup when the shoji screen opened and the serving girl came in with a tray containing another bowl of oden. Her face was still red where she had been slapped, but her tears were wiped dry. Kaze took the chopsticks off the tray and picked up the bowl. Holding it close to his mouth, he took a piece of steaming daikon radish and sucked it in.

The girl sat watching Kaze eat. With a second piece of vegetable in his mouth, Kaze said, “Well?”

The girl gave a clumsy bow. “Thank you, samurai-sama.”

Kaze brushed aside the remark. “The punishment was out of proportion to the crime, but you were clumsy.”

“I know, samurai-sama. It’s just that we’re all on edge here. Even the master is scared. That’s why he hit me. He’s not normally a mean man. He’s just upset like the rest of us.”

“Why is everyone upset?”

The girl looked over her shoulder and almost whispered, “The master doesn’t want us to talk about it. He says it will hurt business.”

“There is no business, except for me, so why don’t you tell me?”

Once again, the girl looked around. Then she said, “Two nights ago we saw a terrible sight. A demon rode through the village.”

Kaze believed in demons, just as he believed in other spirits and ghosts. Everyone did. But he had never actually seen a demon, and he found it strange that this girl said she had. “What kind of demon?”

“It was horrible. It had a red face with two horns, like this.” She put her hands to her forehead and made little horns with her fingers. “It had long white hair and wide shoulders. It was riding a black horse and carrying off a poor soul to hell.”

“What do you mean?”

“A man was strapped across the horse!”

“This demon rode a horse?”

“Yes, it was awful! It came thundering through the village and rode off down the road. We all saw it, and we’ve been scared ever since. No one knows when it will come back-maybe this time for one of us!”

Kaze put down his teacup and studied the face of the girl before him. She was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, with a coarse peasant’s face. She had a strip of cloth wrapped around her forehead as a sweatband, and her kimono was old but clean. The fear in her eyes was palpable, and it was plain she believed what she was saying.

“Is that so …” Kaze said, letting the last word trail off to indicate he was a bit skeptical.

“Honto desu! It’s true!”

“And the demon came riding through this village?”

“Yes.”

“And several people saw it?”

“That’s right, samurai-sama. I’m not making it up. Almost everyone in the village saw it. We heard this horse in the night and looked out to see it. Since then, the master’s been reciting sutras every spare moment he can find to ward off evil spirits from this house. Most of the village has been doing the same.”

“Where did the demon go?”

“No one knows for sure. Did you happen to see it on the road?”

“No. I just came from Uzen prefecture. I’m on my way to Rikuzen prefecture, but last night I stayed in Suzaka village.”

“Oh, then you took the wrong road at the crossroads.”

“What do you mean?”

“You remember the crossroads where four roads meet?”

“Yes, I remember it very well.”

“One of the roads is from Uzen.”

“That’s the road I came on.”

“Yes. One of the roads goes deeper into the mountains, toward Mount Fukuto. Another road goes to Suzaka village, and the fourth comes here, Higashi village.”

“So you don’t have to go through Suzaka to get to here?”

“No. That’s where the District Lord has his manor, but most people don’t go through Suzaka. That’s why it doesn’t even have a teahouse. Most people go directly from the crossroads to here.”

“So the roads form a kind of triangle, connecting the crossroads, Suzaka village and Higashi village?”

“Yes.”

“And up ahead is a branch in the road where I can continue toward Rikuzen or go back to the crossroads?”

“That’s right.”

“Is that so …” This time Kaze’s intonation conveyed that he was genuinely interested in what the girl was telling him. “I understand that the Lord of this District has only governed it for two years,” he continued.

“Yes. That’s Lord Manase. He got the District as a reward for killing the famous general Iwaki Sadataka at the battle of Sekigahara. He took the general’s head to Tokugawa Ieyasu himself and presented it and got this District as his reward.”

“The District doesn’t seem very peaceful.”

“It’s terrible! Ever since Lord Manase took over things have gone from bad to worse. The teahouse business gets less each year because people are afraid to travel through here. No one is safe. Everyone is suffering!”

“Is that so?” Kaze said. The words were the same as before, but this time the tone conveyed sympathy.

The girl then leaned forward, almost whispering. “Tonight I’ll come visit you in your bed. We’ll have to be silent, so the master won’t know, because I’ll do it for free. I wouldn’t charge you, samurai-sama.”

Kaze studied the stumpy body and rough, red face of the serving girl and swallowed what he was going to say. Instead, in a kind tone, he said, “I won’t be staying the night. I want to return to Suzaka village.”

“But it’s late,” the serving girl protested. “You’ll have to travel in the dark! The roads are full of bandits, and the demon might still be about.”

“Yes, I know.”

When Kaze finally got back to Suzaka, it had been dark for several hours. As he approached Jiro’s hut, he could see the glow of the fire peeking through some gaps in the door. Kaze rapped on the hut’s sliding wooden door and said, “Oi! Jiro! Wake up! It’s the samurai. I’ve returned and want to spend the night.”

Kaze heard movement in the hut. Then he heard the stick that prevented the farmhouse door from sliding open being removed. The door was shoved ajar slightly.

“Jiro?” Kaze said. There was no response. He waited for a few minutes, but there was no more sound from inside the farmhouse. Silently, Kaze loosened his sword and slid it out of its scabbard. With his free hand he slid the door of the farmhouse fully open.

Inside, he could see the glow of the charcoal fire in the firepit and smell the bubbling porridge in the pot. Otherwise, he could detect nothing in the darkened farmhouse.

Cautiously, Kaze stepped into the hut, saying, “Jiro?”

A net dropped down on his head, trapping his sword arm under its heavy skein. Kaze brought his sword up and had sliced through two ropes of the net when the first blow hit. It was heavy, like a club. It staggered Kaze and forced him to one knee. He was attempting to stand when the second blow hit. Kaze twisted, but the enfolding shroud of the net prevented him from dodging the heavy fall of cudgels. One blow hit him on the side of his head, and he saw a red flash. Before he could absorb this, additional blows pummeled his head, forcing him into the black sleep of unconsciousness.